Operation Clean Money Current Affairs

Income Tax Department (ITD) has initiated Operation Clean Money to investigate tax evaders. As a part of the operation, the government has launched a website on ‘Operation Clean Money’ operation.

Salient Highlights

The Operation Clean Money’ portal has been designed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). Initial phase of the operation involves identification of around 18 lakh persons who have made large deposits or purchases between 9th November to 30th December 2016, which do not appear to be in line with the tax payer’s profile.

The provision of online verification of these transactions is aimed at reducing the compliance cost for the taxpayers while optimising the resources of the Income Tax department.

The PAN holders can view the information in the portal. The taxpayers would be allowed to submit online explanation without the need to visiti the Income Tax Office. As a reminder, e-mail and SMS will also be sent to the taxpayers for submission of online response on the portal.

The IT department will make use of the data analytics to select cases for verification. After selection of cases, additional information requested would be communicated electronically. On getting the information, the portal will get dynamically updated. The taxpayers covered under this phase are required to submit their responses within 10 days in order to avoid further notice and enforcement actions under the Income Tax Act.

The response provided by the tax payer would be analyzed against available information with the department. If response found justified, the verification would be closed. The verification will also be closed if the cash deposit has been declared under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY).

Background

Operation Clean Money was launched immediately after government’s demonetisation drive in order to bring the tax evaders with undeclared incomes under the tax net. The income tax department has so far identified about 1.8 million persons and asked them o explain their deposits, pay tax or disclose past undisclosed income through the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.

The Income Tax department has launched the second phase of the ‘Operation Clean Money’ to investigate over 60,000 individuals with an aim to detect black money generation post demonetisation. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-making body of the income tax department has detected flow of black money into the banks amounting to over Rs 9,334 crore between November 9, 2016 and February 28 this year.

Under the second phase of Operation Clean Money, more than 60,000 persons including 1,300 high risk persons has been identified for detailed investigation. The department has deducted more than 6,000 transactions of high value property purchase and 6,600 cases of outward remittances.

The first phase of ‘Operation Clean Money’ was launched on January 31, 2017. In the first phase, the department went through e-verification of large cash deposits into the banks after the demonetisation and had sent online queries and investigated around 17.92 lakh persons.

Significance

This operation will help in eliminating black money and widen the tax base.

The impact of the operations carried out by the income tax department has resulted in a 21.7% increase in the income tax returns in the financial year 2016-17. Also, 16% growth in the gross collection has been observed, which is the highest in the last five years. Besides, 14% growth in net collection has been realized, which is the highest in the last three years.